I think the antibiotics are working so that is good! My foot is still swollen and red, but less so than last evening which is a relief! If you didn’t read yesterday’s blog I ended up at the hospital in Nice with a foot infection from infected blisters caused by wearing new shoes to walk around Antibes. Never again!
Last night as we were walking home from Lidl the grocery store on our street, we found a little patisserie which had fresh almond croissants. Almond croissants and pan au chocolate are my two favorite breakfast treats while in France, but we hadn’t found a patisserie that made the almond croissants until we found this patisserie. Richard spoke to the owner who said she opened at 7am every day. So this morning I was up early to take another dose of antibiotics and Richard went down to the patisserie to get me an almond croissant to eat after taking the antibiotics.
The almond croissant was warm still when Richard brought it home from the patisserie. He also brought me a small chocolat chaud (hot chocolate) to go along with the almond croissant. I have to say that this was the best almond croissant I have ever eaten! The filling was warm and plentiful. I think if I lived here permanently I would be 300 pounds!
Richard did a bunch of hand washing of our laundry this morning in the shower because our washer is also a dryer the machine will shrink our clothes! There doesn’t seem to be a setting on the washer that is less dry or damp, We hung the washed clothes on the drying rack on our small balcony, since it was going to be 20C or 68F again today, with nice, warm sunshine and a breeze.
Using the shower to hand wash clothes meant that I ended up with a less than hot shower as I guess our water tank for the condo unit is quite small. Oh well. We won’t be doing hand washing of laundry again until both of us have our showers in the morning!
Since I wasnt sure how my foot would hold up walking around, we decided not to go too far afield today. Being Sunday in France we were also not sure what would be open,
Avenue Jean Medecin
As we got to Avenue Jean Medecin the main shopping and tram street in Nice, we noticed there were many people out and about and the cafes were full of people having Sunday brunch meals.
We decided to walk to old town Nice and see whether we could find a nice spot for lunch as well as find some streets we had not walked down before to see what we could find.
Walking by the Miroir d’Eau or Fountain of MIrrors. We have yet to see the fountain actually become a fountain, but apparently it is magnificent.
Shooting across the Fountain of Mirrors towards Nice Old Town.
Palais de Justice (City Courthouse), Nice. This Neoclassical building was completed in 1892 and was built on the site of a former Dominican convent which was demolished.
L’oulivie or The Olive Tree sculpture by Laurent Basio a local artisan from Nice.
I like wandering these types of streets to find quieter spots to eat
We wandered around the Old Town of Nice looking for a quaint spot to eat, but nothing really appealed to us so we kept walking. There were many restaurants that had lineups for brunch which appeared to be a very popular item or course since it was Sunday, the day of brunch!
As we exited Old Town Nice we saw a statue and some displays that looked interesting that we wanted to check out in Place Garibaldi.
The oldest square in Nice which was created between 1773-1784. All of the buildings that surround the square have ochre coloured facades which are mostly done in the trompe-l’oiel style. The statue itself is of General Giuseppe Garibaldi and was erected in 1891. With a name like Giuseppe I figured this guy must have been Italian so the burning question was “Why does Nice, France have a statue of an Italian general in the middle of a major square?” So of course I had to google that. Nice, France at one time was a part of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, one of the territories that would later make up Italy but Nice was not yet Italian. Garibaldi was born in Nice in 1807 and he set out to unify the various territories of what was to become Italy in 1860, which is the date of Italian unification. On June 14, 1860 the County of Nice was ceded to France against the advice of the majority of the Italian population but with agreement of the new King of Italy Victor-Emmanuel II. Garibaldi never accepted the fact that Nice became a part of France.
Displays commemorating the 80th liberation of Nice
American war hero’s in Nice 1944
The billboards that we saw near Garibaldi’s statue were in remembrance of the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of France from Nazi rule in WW2. The posters showed how the beaches of Nice were peppered with mines and lined with barbed wire and anti-aircraft weapons which Germany was using in case the Allied forces had any ideas of trying to free Nice. All of the gorgeous buildings along the Promenade d’Anglais were requisitioned by the Germans, emptied and barricaded and painted with camouflage, all except for Hotel Negresco which had been taken over as a Nazi administration centre. A guerrilla operation of 350 soldiers without uniforms based in Nice went against 2,000 armed German occupiers on August 28, 1944. Fighting took place in Place Garibaldi and went all the way to Jean Medecin. The Nazis sent a telegram saying that Nice was infested with terrorists. The Allied forces were just down the coast and the Germans evacuated at 7pm and the Allied ships arrived at 9pm and bombed the armaments on the Promenade des that had been littered with mines. By 11pm 2,000. German soldiers left Nice in a long convoy. Two days later the American tanks arrived in Place and Nice was liberated from Nazi rule.
After learning a bit about the history of the liberation of Nice, we walked around Girabaldi Square looking at restaurant menus until we finally found something that interested us both.
Looking at someone I guess?!
Of course! I’m looking at Richard and he’s happy in a cafe in Nice!
Asian Factory was the restaurant we chose for lunch today.
Chicken pad thai for Richard
Thai basil beef for me
The food was great at Asian Factory and it was nice to sit out in a cafe enjoying the sunshine, listening to a guitar player serenading us from in front of the restaurant during our lunch. The guitar player came around with his hat collecting tips after he had finished playing for about 20 minutes. We gave him a euro to thank him for the nice ambiance he created with his music.
After a quick stop at the mall and at Monoprix for some more groceries for dinner, we walked home not thinking we had walked that far today and it turned out that we had done over 10,000 steps on our ‘taking it easy’ day!
I had not sat out on the table to try and write the blog, so I thought I would give it a go on this beautiful Sunday afternoon when we arrived back to our apartment around 4pm. Being on the 6th, top floor, definitely has its advantages with the views of Nice! The VRBO could do with a few touch ups of paint on the walls of the balcony of course, but the place is pretty functional and generally in good shape. We love our location and for $127CAD a night you can’t beat the 10 minutes to downtown or 10 minutes to the train station for touring for the size and airiness of the apartment.
I took a break from writing the blog to have a long call with a friend from Canada (I won’t spoil the secret on who it is), but we will be meeting up with this friend later this week in France.
And as the sun set over Nice we really enjoyed our relaxing Sunday meandering around Nice without an agenda; finding new spots we’ve not visited yet. We are also ever so thankful that 80 years ago this beautiful city was liberated by the brave people of Nice and the Allied forces who drove the Nazi’s out of Nice.
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